iPad Hacker Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison

A hacker convicted of improperly accessing the accounts of AT&T iPad owners was sentenced to 41 months today.

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A hacker convicted of improperly accessing the accounts of AT&T iPad owners was sentenced to 41 months in prison today.

As reported by Wired, Andrew Auernheimer will spend the next three years and four months behind bars. The sentence was handed down after Auernheimer reportedly got into a scuffle with court officials over a mobile device he had. The Verge said he was not supposed to be using a computer with a keyboard, and ultimately, the exchange led to him being cuffed.

Auernheimer - known online as Weev - and Daniel Spitler, believed to be members of the Goatse Security coalition of hackers, were arrested in mid-January 2011 on two counts each: one for fraud and the other for conspiring to access an unauthorized server, in this case, AT&T's. In June 2010 the carrier disclosed the theft of 114,000 e-mail addresses and ICC-IDs (identity numbers stored in SIM cards) of Apple iPad 3G owners, including Michael Bloomberg, Harvey Weinstein, and blogger Kara Swisher.

The hackers provided the stolen email addresses to gossip blog Gawker, which posted the data in redacted form, and said a group known as Goatse Security was claiming responsibility.

"No matter what the outcome, I will not be broken. I am antifragile," Auernheimer tweeted earlier today.

Auernheimer appeared on a Reddit AMA yesterday, where he said: "My regret is being nice enough to give AT&T a chance to patch before dropping the dataset to Gawker. I won't nearly be as nice next time."

The Verge said the prosecution mentioned the AMA three times during today's sentencing.

Chloe Albanesius has been with PCMag.com since April 2007, most recently as Executive Editor for News and Features. Prior to that, she worked for a year covering financial IT on Wall Street for Incisive Media. From 2002 to 2005, Chloe covered technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University...
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